Of Football and the Rose Parade

Ultimately I chose the parade. I was still in grieving over the dashed playoff hopes of the Broncos. Plus there was the prospect of seeing the parade commercial-free. The football game would still have commercials, and besides that, the last half of the game would still be on after the parade ended.

The parade was quite a show this year (as it is every year). The Grand Marshall was George Lucas of Star Wars fame (there was even quite a Star Wars tribute consisting of two floats and a marching band dressed up for the show). Oklahoma had two floats, one of which had a surprise rocket man.

HGTV did a great job of broadcasting the parade. As if you couldn’t tell, the commercial-free broadcast was a huge selling point for me.

Now some critiques of the parade. There was this covert environmentalist point to the theme (Mother Earth, save the forests, etc…). Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the beauty of God’s creation, but I don’t subscribe to the modern-day extremes of environmentalism. If anything, I am a conservationist.

Anyway, given the theme, there were a number of inconsistencies:

Cars were driven for assorted elected officials and the Grand Marshall. Not one of the cars were mentioned as being “enviro-friendly” or “powered by such-and-such alternative fuel.” Presumption: they were all gas-powered engines that went down Colorado Blvd. A terrible ingredient for this particular Rose Parade.

One float depicted a circus scene, complete with steam-driven calliope. Know what was used to achieve the desired effect? CO2!!!! No wonder the Pasadena skyline was so smoggy!

In spite of these problems that must be addressed, I do have to say there was an excellent use of play-on-words by one of the HGTV commentators. A discussion arose (no pun intended) about a bleeding heart rose. The commentator said that when people asked his advice on planting bleeding hearts, he told them to do so liberally!!! I am ashamed to admit that it took me a couple of seconds to catch what he said, but I don’t think his comrades even caught it, so I don’t feel too bad about it.

Currently in Cody

‘Tis the Political Season!

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome new readers and old readers! You old readers will notice that I have a new look on my blog; hope you like it because I do! Your comments, few as they have been, are welcome anytime. Just be decent about it.
If you have any questions, check out the FAQ's/NSFAQ's page.

My Flickr Photos

HTML allowed in comments:

Want to do some editing in your comment? To do so the easy way, go to my Firefox page, download and install Firefox, then download the BBCode extension. Highlight what you want to edit and use the HTML Code menu. If you don't want to do all that (and even if you do), see also: Here, here